Extending the Message

I went to a Purpose Driven Youth Ministry luncheon yesterday at my buddy Jason Harris’ church in Severn. Basically what these luncheons entail is food(duh), a chance to meet some like minded youth pastors and discuss ministry…basically share life and pray with one another. During the luncheon Saddleback Church (home of PDYM) supplied us with a video to get conversation flowing and one of the things that the video touched upon was the need to have different layers throughout student ministry.
For a long time I’ve struggled with keeping our crowd programs Ascent, Resurrection and Uprising as entry level programs for those looking to have a relationship with Christ. This doesn’t mean we dumb down a message or talk about surface stuff, but we don’t get too specific. Now if a teen wants to go deeper they join a small group, but if a student wants to go even deeper we should be able to supply them with resources to grow on their own…that’s not really happening.
We should be modeling what’s happening in big church, there there is the message guide, and resources in the cafe. We probably should be looking at more books and resources for students during these series, we should also provide them with cross references and other supplies to go deeper. This isn’t a revelation, it’s not hard to get this stuff going, keeping it going is the hard part. I’m going to have to throw this out at the ministers, see what they say, see if someone wants to take ownership…we’ll have to see.